Today, it’s my grandma’s birthday — Mama Lucy turns 84 — and I am grateful for another day with her. Grateful for her presence, her love, and the quiet ways she has shaped my life. As I thought about today’s question, “What positive emotion do you feel most often?”, my answer came instantly: gratefulness. Because if there’s one thing her life has taught me, it’s that gratitude is not just an emotion; it’s a way of seeing.

I feel it in the smallest corners of the day. In the steam curling up from a freshly brewed cup of coffee, the way it warms my hands before it even touches my lips. In the soft weight of my cat curling against me when the world feels heavy. In the unexpected text from a friend I haven’t spoken to in weeks, just checking in, reminding me I’m not alone. These moments aren’t grand gestures; they’re the brushstrokes that colour my life with a sense of enoughness.

Gratefulness has taught me to notice — really notice. To see the way sunlight filters through my curtains in the late afternoon, casting shifting patterns on the floor like some quiet, private artwork. To savour the first bite of a meal cooked with care, knowing that someone, somewhere, planted, harvested, and prepared the ingredients long before they reached my table. To hold onto the warmth of a conversation with someone who listens, not to reply, but to understand.

It hasn’t always been this way. There were years when I thought gratitude belonged only to people whose lives were easy, abundant, or untouched by loss. But life — and Mama Lucy — taught me otherwise. I have learned that gratefulness and hardship are not opposites; they can walk side by side. In fact, the most profound gratitude I’ve ever felt came during seasons when life was far from perfect. It was the 5-peso coins Mama Lucy would slip into my hand on school mornings when my mom didn’t have much left. It was the plate of rice humay she cooked for me when I passed the board exam, because she knew it was my favourite. Even when we had little, she found a way to give — and in doing so, she taught me that gratefulness isn’t about what you have, but how you see what’s already there.

Gratefulness has a way of turning fleeting seconds into lasting memories. It doesn’t erase pain or uncertainty, but it makes room for joy to exist alongside them. It allows me to wake up after a long, difficult shift at work and still find beauty in the fact that I am able to help someone. It allows me to look at the twists and delays of my own journey and see them as detours, not dead ends.

So yes, on the day my grandma turns 84, my heart is full. Gratefulness is the emotion I carry most often, because it has been my anchor in storms and my magnifying glass in moments of beauty. It reminds me that life itself is the gift, and everything else is a bonus.

And if you ask me what I’ve learned most from her life, I’ll say this: even in the rain, notice how the light catches in the puddles — because those small glimmers are what make the journey worth it.